The Soldotna City Council unanimously passed an ordinance that would increase estimated revenues and appropriations by $60,000 in the general fund for additional legal services. The Biennial Operating Budget that was adopted in June 2021 includes $71,500 for FY22 general legal services. In addition to providing day-to-day legal support, which has seen an increase in the current fiscal year, City attorneys also engage in specific projects, including two litigation issues as directed by City Council. Those issues include an appeal of the Local Boundary Commission’s annexation decision and filing an amicus brief in the case of the United Cook Inlet Drift Association vs. National Marine Fisheries Service.
City Manager Stephanie Queen spoke to the council regarding the city’s attorney:
“We’re right in line of spending annually with where we’re at in the year except for two additional tasks and projects that we’ve assigned to their office. The first was the appeal of the City’s annexation petitions. To date, the attorney shave expended approximately $27,500 on that effort. Additionally, the UCIDA amicus brief which was drafted and submitted through January had incurred almost $14,000. Those two items alone have utilized a larger portion of our budget and we would not be able to make up that difference by scaling back or cutting kind of our needs for the remainder of the year. For the remainder of FY22, we’re requesting additional funds be appropriated to the legal services budget to continue our normal procedures of reaching out to the attorneys as needed for administrative needs or legislative needs, but also for those two items.”
The city administration requests an additional $60,000 to ensure sufficient funding is available for the remainder of FY22. With the additional funding, the total allocation in the General Fund, brings the appropriation to $131,500.
The ordinance unanimously passed the Soldotna City Council.
